The door closes behind me without a sound, no click of wood, no slam of stone.
I wait for the echo. I wait for the sound of hinges.
Nothing.
Just silence folding in on itself, as if the world had drawn a curtain and left me on the wrong side.
The air shifts. The damp heaviness of the dark hall is gone. The breathless dark, the suffocating weight. Gone.
Replaced by this room.
It has almost a clarity to it. A sharpness. A strange, sterile light pools across the floor, though no lamps, nor torches burn. The light seems to have no source. It simply exists, steady and unwavering.
The room itself seems...neat. The walls are pale and polished smoothly until they almost gleam faintly. The corners are sharp, precise, without the slightest crack or shadow. As if they had been cut again and again, until irregularity itself has been chased out.
The floor shines as if freshly scrubbed. Each tile is perfectly square and aligned with deliberate care. Not a line out of place. Not a speck of dust to blemish the surface. Not a scratch. Not even a trace of wear for footsteps.
It feels untouched.
As though I am the first to step here.
For a moment, it almost feels inviting. Like a place prepared. A place waiting.
I take a step.
The sound strikes the air, ringing longer than it should, echoing against nothing. It lingers. A note in the silence, like the room is unwilling to let it go.
Another step. I gaze down.
The tiles shine back at me.
My reflection shivers faintly across the squares, fractured, broken into pieces. Eyes. Mouth. Hands clutching the compass. All broken apart.
I blink.
For a moment, the fragments knit together. My reflection now refined and clear. And then it bends. The light seems to warp on the polished floor into a new image.
A man's face gazes up. Composed. Still. Beautiful in a way that feels practiced. His features exact, like a portrait that has been painted over too many times. Every line lies flat, and every shadow placed with purpose.
For an instant, I don't breathe.
His gaze fixes on mine, direct, unwavering, as though he has been waiting for this moment.
I should look away. I want to look away.
I can't.
Something in him holds me.
The stillness? Calm? The unbearable sense pressing down that he knows me. That feeling of being a page that has already been read creeps up my spine, weighing on me. My throat tightens and burns with questions, but they don't find shape.
My chest aches.
The compass stirs faintly in my hand, a weak pulse, as though it would drag me back into my body if it could.
I blink again.
Only tiles. Only light. Only me, scattered into squares.
The silence doesn't change, but it presses in closer now, as though it approves.
I swallow hard. Choking on borrowed air.
"Finally."
The voice does not break the silence. It folds into my ear, low, close, intimate as a whisper only I was meant to hear.
"Do you know how long I've waited for this?"
The words curl smoothly. Velvet. Warm. The kind of warmth that lingers too close.
"Every step. Every…hesitation. Every ache. I've seen them all. And now" a pause, deliberate, indulgent "…now I want to hear you."
The light tilts on the walls. Two faint lines glow, stretching, widening. Two doors appear on the polished surface, side by side. Identical. Perfect.
One carved with the word TRUE. The other with FALSE.
"Let's begin simply," the voice says, like a calm host, coaxing a guest into a chair. "No riddles. No games. Just....honesty."
Something unnerves me when he says that word.
I shudder.
The voice pauses again. Longer now. Heavy.
"Your grandmother."
The words settle into the room like a drop of ink in water, spreading until the air itself feels darker.
The tiles begin to darken, their shine sinking into shadow. A circle pushes through the darkness. Not built. Not carved. Revealed.
Spirals knot into place, curling back on themselves until the eyes ache to follow. The grooves glow faintly, a pale light bleeding through the inky blackness. A hum follows, low and steady. Not music. Not speech. The kind of sound that doesn't pass through the air but settles directly into the chest.
A woman kneels at the center of the circle.
Her face hits me like recognition in a dream. The slope of her cheeks. The line of her jaw. A resemblance I have never known, but my blood cannot deny the ache.
Her head is bowed low. Her lips move, soundless, forming words I cannot hear... will never hear. But her mouth shapes them with certainty, as if she has repeated them so often that the meaning is no longer necessary. Only the act matters.
Her hands rest in her lap. Palms up and open. Fingers long and still. There is no tremor in them. No hesitation. Devotion without flaw.
I want to look away. But I can't.
This is her.
My grandmother.
The name spoken rarely in my home. The absence carried like a weight with no shape. My mother's voice would always falter whenever I brought her up. Still, she said nothing.
And now.
Here she is, alive before me, alive in this circle of spirals.
The glow strengthens. The spirals thrum brighter.
Her mouth forms a final word, silent and absolute.
The circle answers. Light swells from the grooves. White and blinding. The edges of her body blur. Her outline dissolves like parchment too close to a flame. Cloth unravels into brightness. Strands of hair flare one by one until they vanish.
Her face remains last. Eyes closed. Mouth still. And until even that is gone.
No scream. No collapse. No pain.
Only fire. Burning without flame.
The circle hums on, unchanged, as though nothing has happened.
But the ache that opens in my chest is something.It's not grief. Grief needs memory. This is hollower, heavier. A hollow that feels wide enough to pull me through it.
The compass jolts against my palm.
Heat sears up through the metal, so sharp I nearly cry out. My hand tightens, clutching it until the rim cuts into me, but it doesn't matter. The pain feels right. Like it is the only real thing in this room.
A sigh touches the air behind me.
"Oh, darling..."
The voice is so close it brushes the space behind my ear, close enough I almost tilt my head to escape it.
Smooth. Deliberate. The sound of someone savoring a sip of wine.
"Look at her," he croons, soft admiration in every word. "Every vow. Every word. Not one mistake. Not one falter. Perfection, on her knees."
The hum of the circle deepens.
"And still—" his tone dips into something almost fond. "—she burned. Faith without flaw, devotion without error. And all it gave her was silence. Ash. And—."
He pauses. Long. So long it aches.
"Do you want to know the sweetest part?" His voice lowers, honeyed and conspiratorial. "She didn't end. Not truly. She never stopped. Not when the light took her, not when the silence came. She goes on kneeling. Whispering. A prayer without end."
The compass flares violently, and I gasp.
He laughs. A soft laugh, indulgent, practiced. Like he's enjoying the sound of my pain.
"You feel that, don't you? She hates me saying it. Your hand burns. Your pulse stutters. You're afraid even to breathe too loud. I see it. I feel it."
The walls ripple. The doors glow faintly at the edge of my vision. Standing opposite each other. Patient. Waiting.
TRUE. FALSE.
His tone glides, smooth, like a knife slipping between my ribs.
"Tell me, darling... true or false: she lingers with me still, whispering in the dark."
His words hum through the air. The doors brighten.
I freeze.
"Mmmm..." he exhales, amused, "you linger. I can taste it. The way you hover there, caught between running and falling. You want to choose, and you don't. You want to fight me, and you ache to stop fighting. Which will it be?"
His voice lowers further, brushing too close, intimate in my space. "So still. So quiet. I wonder...are you bracing yourself to resist me, or savoring the thought of surrender? I can never tell with you. That's what makes it so.... delicious."
The circle burns behind my eyes. My grandmother vanished, her lips unmoving as the light consumed her. My mother's silence wrapped around everything like a shroud.
The compass sears against my palm, furiously. I nearly scream.
I stagger forward, pulled by the angry metal in my hand and the ache in my chest. I press my palm against the glowing FALSE.
The surface is cool, impossibly cool, as though warmth itself has never touched it.
The vision fractures around me.
Laughter unfurls behind me. Not loud. Not cruel. Worse.
Measured. Perfect. The laugh of someone who has practiced in mirrors countless times. Until he knows exactly how it should sound.
"Mmmm…" His hum curls near, indulgent, curling into me like smoke. "How careful. How faithful. You don't want her to be mine. How touching"
I push the door open.
It moves without a sound.
"Tell me, darling. Are you certain? That little thing burns you, and you rush to obey. How faithful you are. How sweet." A pause, sharpened by amusement. "But tell me—how many times has faith betrayed the faithful?"
I can feel the smile in his voice widen. His voice moves close, too close.
"So quick to trust the burn in your hand. So quick to believe it's doing something for you." His tone dips low and coaxing, velvet stretched over something sharp. "Tell me, darling… How often has love lied?"
I shake my head and set my gaze forward. The door gives way to a long corridor.
The air is warmer here, though the warmth feels borrowed. Candles line the passage in neat iron sconces, each flame tall, steady and unmoving. Their light catches the frames that line the wall.
Dozens of portraits lining the wall. The faces shift in the flicker of the light. Sometimes strangers, sometimes familiar, sometimes mine. Each one too carefully painted, the brushstrokes neat, precise, obsessive. No canvas bears dust. Everything is arranged, prepared, waiting.
The flames tremble without moving. The portraits lean closer in their frames.
The compass pulses weakly in my palm, as though it's struggling against the light of the candles. And behind it all, his voice lingers soft, teasing.
"You never really know which truth is yours, do you? Hers? Mine? Theirs? All painted neat, all smiling, all staring. They can't all be right. But one of them will follow you forever."
The hallway narrows as I near the end of it. A door rises, pale and perfect.
I place my hand against it and breathe deeply. Preparing myself for the next question. I wonder again. Is this really where she wanted me to be? What she wanted me to find?
"Shall we see," he whispers, serpentine and poisonous "What your mother left you?"